


The Oath

by androbeaurepaire



Series: Rise of the Robin [2]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Bruce is learning on the job, Dick is Tiny McSmall, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, also Alfred Pennyworth is pettier than thou, as usual, basically everyone is being dramatic at everyone, jersey reference, shameless plunder of Alexandre Dumas, silver age character reference, that's how he says I love you, the continued adventures of Bruce and Dick becoming Batman and Robin together, while bleeding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-19 11:44:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20656697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/androbeaurepaire/pseuds/androbeaurepaire
Summary: Bruce told Dick the truth about Batman.Somehow, that wasn't the hardest part yet.





	The Oath

**Author's Note:**

> This is a follow-up to my story "The road before", and I guess it helps to have read that one before, but it's also not absolutely necessary. Basically this is just Bruce, Dick and Alfred being dramatic at each other.
> 
> As always I apologize for any language mistake or typos I might have missed, please don't hesitate to let me know if this is really unreadable !

> _ "You guess aright, my friend; this youth is an orphan, deserted by his mother, who left him in the house of a poor country priest. I have brought him up. It is Raoul who has worked in me the change you see; I was dried up like a miserable tree, isolated, attached to nothing on earth; it was only a deep affection that could make me take root again and drag me back to life. This child has caused me to recover what I had lost. I had no longer any wish to live for myself, I have lived for him. I have corrected the vices that I had; I have assumed the virtues that I had not. Precept something, but example more. I may be mistaken, but I believe that Raoul will be as accomplished a gentleman as our degenerate age could display." _
> 
> Alexandre Dumas, **Twenty Years After**.

  
-

  
  
"Ah! this," Bruce’s voice rumbled behind the door. "This is nothing but a butchery of horses and not a combat between men. To the sword, sir! the sword!"  
  
“Wait, what ! No!” cried Dick as he barreled in the study. “B, you _ miscreant _ ! You promised we wouldn’t kill any horse !”  
  
Bruce’s eyes narrowed upwards, deliberately giving up that he was smiling even as he wiped the air with his cardboard tube, fist on his hip, campy and menacing. Or at least, as campy and menacing as he could pull off while wearing a brim braided sun hat and being wrapped from head to toe in a flowery tablecloth.  
  
_ ‘I can assure you Master Bruce has a lot of practice with the fine art of being an enemy of the crown, no matter the period. He will make it work.’ _ , Alfred had told Dick without a trace of humor when the boy had begged him for musketeers costumes. Bruce hadn’t even dared thinking about rolling his eyes, as the older man was dropping the content of Aunt Harriet’s closet in Dick’s waiting arms.  
  
It was far from the worst way Alfred had ever expressed his displeasure at Bruce coming back from patrol with a knife wound. It was also far from the worst way he had ever expressed his displeasure at Bruce doing any kind of physical activity the morning after. Probably because this time Bruce had slept in his bed and taken the day off, at least.  
  
Staying home and _ upstairs _ after an injury was a habit he was really trying to take, now that Dick knew.  
  
“You’re the one who fell asleep in the middle of the chapter, last night” Bruce retorted, flatly. “How would you know what we would and wouldn’t do.”  
  
They were circling each other on the study’s rug now, cardboard tubes held before them in perfect matching stance. Fencing was something Dick had shown a lot of interest in ever since he came to live at the manor, almost as much as he did for riding and motorcycles, and it was even truer now that Bruce didn’t have to lie anymore about his actual skills.  
  
In theory, at least.  
  
“I know enough about you being the one losing, _ monsieur _ !” Dick exclaimed, sending his own blue picnic blanket cape flaring behind him in a flamboyant gesture. He had perched on the back of the couch to be at height level with Bruce -nine years, three feet eight and fifty pounds of panache that would have made Alfred smile and a crowd applaud.  
  
“You wish, microbe” Bruce smirked, in awe. _ You are so brave _ . “To the sword, sir! the sword!”  
  
"To the swords! Be it so! That is exactly what I want !" Dick cried as he jumped forward, sword high in tierce in Bruce’s own favorite attack, the exact way he taught him. Bruce allowed himself another smile, through the folds of the tablecloth. Dick was a quick learn.  
  
No matter what Bruce felt or didn’t feel like he was allowed to teach him.  
  
“Now that’s the part where you’re supposed to find out who I am” he said, parrying another attack.  
  
“I thought you were the duc de Beaufort ! He is the one who escaped the dungeon !”  
  
“Yes, but he had a lot of help. Don’t you remember the Grimaud chapters ?”  
  
“It was a long time ago !” Dick snapped as he swat Bruce’s tube away and found another launching spot for his third-pint self -on the desk, this time. The tone was much more biting than the question itself called for, but Bruce let it lie. Considering the difference in circumstances between the last two times they had read _ Twenty Years afte _ r together, a bit of annoyance -anger- was more than understandable.  
  
“Do you want me to tell you beforehand ?” Bruce asked instead, softly, lowering his guard.  
  
Mistake.  
  
Dick _ was _ a quick learn.  
  
The cardboard tube barely made a noise as it snaked around his wrist and shot up to his throat ; perfect overture, flawless aim. What Dick might have otherwise lacked in [allonge] to make it work, he had compensated by climbing, and distracting Bruce, and jumping. It was an attack Bruce had taught him itself, with all of Alfred’s precision, Talia’s mastery and Batman’s ruthlessness. Dick, in that instant, made it imparable. 

  
He saw the hurt in the boy’s eyes a second before he felt it in his arm.  
  
“B !”  
  
A warm, scarlet stain was starting to blossom on Aunt Harriet’s flowery tablecloth, where the tube had rasped against last night’s fresh knife wound. Bruce quickly undrapped the cloth and wrapped it securely around the offended shoulder, not wanting it to drip on the rug on top of everything else.  
  
“I’m alright,” he said, forcing himself to take the time to lead Dick toward the couch so they could sit together, instead of kneeling before him on the spot like he wanted to.  
  
They had been very careful to remove all of the vases, glass frames and lamps from the study before they claimed it as a play stage, but all the attempted sensibility about fragile and valuable trinkets would be rendered useless if Bruce passed out on the floor and stained it permanently, like he had already done with his father’s chair.The last thing Alfred needed lately was more reasons to be pissed at him.  
  
He still couldn’t remember what it was like, to look at his oldest friend and know he wasn’t angry. It was older than the knife wound. Older than the chair.  
  
It had taken time, but he finally understood.  
  
Or at least he had started to, since Tony Zucco.  
  
“I’m alright” he repeated, taking both of Dick’s hands in one of his, while he maintained the improvised bandage with the other. “It’s nothing. I pop stitches all the time. It’s not even a really deep wound. Just an annoying one. It’s not your fault.”  
  
“I’m sorry”, Dick said, the golden olive skin of his cheeks having gone ashey so fast that Bruce wrapped his good arm around him, lightning fast, scared he might pass out. “I’m sorry, I knew you were hurt, you told me, you did ; you- I’m sorry !”  
  
“Dick”, Bruce urged, a panic he wasn’t yet used to suddenly threatening to overwhelm him. He couldn’t lie this one out anymore. There was no imaginary enemy to blame, this time, no manufactured story to tell to distract Dick from the ghosts. “It’s not your fault. It’s me who decided to play even though I knew I was hurt. You did nothing wrong, Dick. I swear to you, you did nothing wrong.”  
  
“I should have been _ careful _ ” Dick cried, yanking his hands from Bruce’s. “I knew you were hurt ! I knew, you told me ! You trusted me and I didn’t- I promised… I told you I could help and I… I…”  
  
“Dick” Bruce tried to breathe, heart in his throat. “Dick, chum, I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t have…I shouldn’t have...”  
  
_ I shouldn’t have told you. _  
  
Releasing the grip he had on his bleeding shoulder, forgetting everything that wasn’t the stricken, teary-eyed child in front of him, Bruce slid forward on the rug and knelt in front of Dick like he should have done from the start.  
  
“Sweetheart, look at me.”  
  
And Dick did.  
  
He had grabbed both of his wrists with each hand and was twisting them like you twist a chicken’s wing to break it loose. Bruce grabbed them and gently but firmly forced Dick to let go, as their eyes caught each others’.  
  
“I still don’t know how to help” Dick whispered, devastated.  
  
Bruce raised his arms.  
  
Dick paled even more.  
  
“I’m gonna get Alfred !”  
  
“Dick !-”  
  
Everything went white.

  
  
  
-

_ It wasn’t exactly a surprise to find Dick in his room, curled up on the queen size bed with a bag of chips and an old hardcover book the size of his head. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “You’re going to put oily crumbs all over my sheets AND your book.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Dick shrugged, magnificently unbothered, and shook the open bag in Bruce’s direction. _  
  
_ “I took the disgusting vinegar ones. I know they’re your fave, ‘cause you have _ no taste. _ Also I know because Alfred hid them really far in the bottom pantry, and he only hides the stuff he doesn’t want ME to find in the super high ones.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “Like Alfred doesn’t know you climb on the fridge anyway.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “Uh-uh. I’m _ stealthy _ .” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Bruce made a point of casting a long, expressive glance toward the ceiling, before he walked to the bed and swatted the giggling boy’s butt. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “Move over, microbe. And give me some chips, I need calories.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Still grinning, Dick scooted further enough on the bed for Bruce’s much more massive frame to slant beside him, and maneuvered to tuck himself under his guardian’s left arm, pressed along his side. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “You feel better ?” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Bruce tugged on the lapel of his robe, so Dick could take a glance at his bandaged left shoulder. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “Good as new.” Bruce said, with something that wasn’t quite a smile. He couldn’t, no matter how much he wanted to. Not yet. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ The memory of both Dick’s and Alfred’s expressions when he had exited the car (“the Batmobile, B !”) and, after a second of hesitation, had let the cape slid off his right, bleeding shoulder was still too fresh. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ He hadn’t thought it had been the right thing to do. He hadn’t thought it was okay to let them see. To let _ Dick _ see. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ But Dick had been there. He had been in the Cave, because he knew. Because Bruce had told him, almost two weeks ago, after the Tony Zucco disaster, in a moment of terror and faith and overwhelming, inescapable certainty that it was the right thing to do. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ The only thing he had been sure of again after that, was that he couldn’t take it back. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ It was easy to not lie to Dick anymore, when he came back home after an ordinary patrol and found the boy curled up in his chair with a book or a sandwich, or helping Alfred around to clean up, and to see him perk up as soon as he saw the cowl and cape. It was easy not to lie to Dick anymore, when the truth was falling down on one knee and hugging a relieved little boy, before taking him upstairs and putting him in bed. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ The lie was much harder to mourn, when the truth was coming home bloody and broken. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “I can’t carry you upstairs, chum” he had told Dick, the truth so bitter and burning on his tongue that he had to close his eyes, as Alfred was sitting him on the cot and unfastening the suit with deft, angry hands. “Would you mind going up on your own and wait for me ? I’ll follow in a minute.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “Make that thirty, at the barest minimum” Alfred had snapped, before turning to Dick and add, in a much gentler voice “He will be quite alright, Master Richard. Some careful examination, disinfectant and stitches will be required, but it’s nothing one wouldn’t recover from with the proper amount of care and rest.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Bruce would have huffed at that last statement, if only because of how blatant the bait (or the threat) was, but he knew better than to prod at a wolf on the hunt. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ He wished he could remember what it was like, to look at Alfred and know he wasn’t angry. He got it, now. He had gotten it the moment he had realized Dick had run away to go kill Tony Zucco. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ It did nothing to make the wish go away, though. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Another bitter truth to mourn. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “It will take more than stitches to take down Batman” Bruce joked as he bent his head to drop a kiss in Dick’s hair. “Go upstairs, chum. I’m coming.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Dick had gone upstairs. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Alfred had stitched him up, without a word. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Bruce had tried. Maybe it had been the blood loss, maybe it had been the truth, the impossibility to remember, but he had tried. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Or rather, he had bitten first. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “Would you rather have wanted that I left him in juvie ?” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ The needle had stilled in his flesh. No biting back. Not yet. Bruce had briefly dreamed of ripping it off the wound and sewing his own mouth shut instead. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ But then he had never known how to mourn in the first place. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “I would rather have wanted that you actually came back home with him.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ The needle had resumed, then finished its work. Alfred had dressed the wound and left. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Bruce had went upstairs. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ And found Dick nestling in his room.  
  
__“Good as new”, he repeated, softly, as he kissed Dick’s head again. “What are you reading, chum ?” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Dick carefully licked his hand clean of all the chips’ crumbs, wiped it on Bruce’s robe, and grabbed the book. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ It was _ Twenty years after _ , carefully marked at the exact place they had stopped reading last time. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “You didn’t continue on your own ?” Bruce asked, as Dick climbed in his lap the same way he climbed everywhere : like he belonged. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “I don’t read the musketeers without you. Just like Robin Hood.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Bruce wrapped his good arm around him and squeezed. _ _  
  
  
  
_ _  
_ _ He had stopped reading the Gray ghosts comics, too, when his father hadn’t been there to do so with him anymore. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ The difference was, he hadn’t wanted to try and do it again with Alfred, either. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Laying his head against Dick’s, Bruce inhaled slowly, and picked up where they left off. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “ _ ‘Athos approached and hung over the youth in an attitude full of tender melancholy; he looked long on this young man, whose smiling mouth and half closed eyes bespoke soft dreams and lightest slumber, as if his guardian angel watched over him with solicitude and affection-...’ ”  
  
  
  
-

“Lay down, sir.”  
  
“... where is… ?”  
  
“I sent the young master Richard to fetch some refreshments, and a book that isn’t by Alexandre Dumas. You and him both may have had enough sword fighting for the day.”  
  
“He is just going to come back with the Black Arrow or the Jedi Apprentice.”  
  
“...”  
  
“...”  
  
“Al. I’m-”  
  
“Passing out because you were actually enjoying yourself in good company -while being at home and on a day off- is far from the most foolish thing you have ever done when injured. If you haven’t felt the need to apologize before, please don’t do so now. Not for this.”  
  
“...”  
  
“...”  
  
“...”  
  
“...”  
  
“... I would. Alfred. I…”  
  
“The kitchen is not actually that far, sir. Master Richard shall be back any minute, now.”  
  
“I would die, if he died.”  
  
“...”  
  
“I would die. Dick, if he -I would. I would... want to.”  
  
“...my boy-”  
  
“This is something I know.That I would want to. That you… But I…Al. _ I know _ . But I won’t stop. Whatever that does make me… you can be angry at it. You can -I get it. I get it, now. But I still won’t stop. There are too many of them, Al. I promised. I swore. There are too many of them out there, and I can help. I can and I will. This is the thing I can’t apologize for.”  
  
“...”  
  
“...”  
  
“Did you ever think... -did this idea ever occur to you that maybe, that boy would die if you died, too.”  
  
“Al...”  
  
“I know I’m not enough, Bruce. I know you think _ you _ are not enough -that your life and everything that would die with you is not even worth sparing a thought about, compared to such a multitude of rotten hearts and soiled streets. But when you brought that child home, when you told me you wanted to… -I hoped. Lord forgive me, I hoped that you had finally found something you could put in the balance and not find _ wanting _ , some part of yourself that wouldn’t be worth putting between knives and a city that _ doesn’t want to be saved _ …-”  
  
“I’m sorry Alfred, I didn’t find the Quality Streets in the bottom pantry but there was chocolate dinosaurs so I took them instead, and you said toffee was always better with chocolate anyway so even if we don’t have toffee we can still have chocolate and-”  
  
“It’s alright, Master Richard. Chocolate dinosaurs are more than fine. Now give me that tray and stop inflicting this poor book such degrading treatment ; it would have been perfectly okay to do more than one trip…-”  
  
  
-

  
  
_ “ _‘Adieu, Raoul,’ said the count; ‘adieu, my dearest boy!’

‘Adieu, sir, adieu, my beloved protector.’

Athos waved his hand - he dared not trust himself to speak: and Raoul went away, his head uncovered. Athos remained motionless, looking after him until he turned the corner of the street.

Then the count threw the bridle of his horse into the hands of a peasant, remounted the steps, went into the cathedral, there to kneel down in the darkest corner and pray.’ _ ” _  
  
_ Bruce finished the chapter in the lowest, softest voice he could, and made a move to gently pry the book away from Dick’s hand. The boy had gone more and more limp against his torso as they read through the Saint-Denis’ oath chapter, barely holding on the book and only remembering to follow the lines with his fingers for a few seconds whenever they switched page. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Turned out, though, it wasn’t because he was asleep yet. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Just lost in his thoughts. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “You okay, chum ?” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “Hmm.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Bruce remained quiet. Dick didn’t sound angry, like he could often be when he was upset or processing something and didn’t want to be asked questions about it, but it was clearly a call for space. Bruce knew the feeling all too well, and also how easily it could lead you to resent others for giving it to you at all, because it was still not enough. Nothing could be. Not for the kind of things Dick… needed to process. Trying to find a balance between holding on anyway, so the boy _ knew _ he wasn’t alone, and letting him find his footing again on his own, was something Bruce applied himself to with the same dedication he had applied himself to sword fighting, not that many years ago. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Dick not moving an inch away from him, even while being clearly withdrawn, actually made him hope he was starting to get the hang of it, at least. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ They stayed like that for a long moment : Dick snuggled against Bruce’s chest, his eyes fixed on his guardian’s left shoulder, and Bruce breathing as steadily as he could under him. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ It was one of the best ways he had found to help the boy relax, so far. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “So, Raoul is a musketeer too, now ?” Dick suddenly asked, still not looking at Bruce. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “What do you mean ?” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “I mean… with the sword and all. It was kinda like in the movies, when you become a knight. Except Athos didn’t do the shoulder thing, he just made Raoul kiss the sword, but he was kneeling and all, and he made an oath. So it was sorta like Athos made Raoul a knight, no?” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “Hnn. I suppose he did, yes. But musketeers and knights are not exactly the same thing.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “But isn’t d’Artagnan a knight ?” Dick exclaimed, actually looking up at Bruce this time, almost indignant. “Everybody calls him “chevalier d’Artagnan” all the time and YOU told me that meant knight !” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “It does, but chevalier is also a title, in France. Like Athos is a count, and like Porthos wants to be a baron. It’s the lowest title you can get, but it’s still proof you are part of the nobility.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “So, like a knight.” Dick insisted. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “Yes... and no. A knight is… it’s someone who swore allegiance to certain values. In most stories, those values are represented by the king, which is why he is the one you make an oath to. A knight protects the king, because the king symbolizes the kingdom and its people. A good king, at least. That is… basically what Athos was telling Raoul, here. That he always needed to tell the difference between the man who is wearing the crown, and the values he is supposed to stand for. If the king is bad, then a good knight must stand by those values first.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “More like Robin Hood, then ?” Dick asked with a grin. “He knows Prince John is bad, so he protects the people instead of him !” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Bruce couldn’t help but smile, too. “Yeah. Like Robin Hood.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “But Robin Hood isn’t a knight.” Dick frowned. “He is a count.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “Yes, that means he is a nobleman. Nobility is the part of the system that protects the king, and therefore the kingdom.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “AH ! So like d’Artagnan !” Dick shouted triumphantly. “And the musketeers ! _ _  
_ _  
_ _ If it hadn’t been for his shoulder, Bruce would have probably let himself flop face first on the bed. _ _  
_ _ Dick’s quick learning abilities apparently came with the counterpart of seeping every single bit of experience out of Bruce. _

_ Christ. He couldn’t even blame that one on the painkillers. Alfred had… Bruce simply hadn’t thought of taking the prepared shot, after. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “Your brain is awfully big for such a ridiculous microbe” Bruce groaned aloud, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the headboard. “I’m not a match for you anymore at this hour.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “Duh. You were _ never _ a match for me. So, is Raoul a musketeer or not ?” Dick insisted, the delighted smile audible in his voice. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “Musketeers are -were, historically, soldiers. Dumas wrote his story like a modern knight tale, though, so I guess you could say _ his _ musketeers are closer to knights after all, indeed.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Dick stayed silent for a minute. Bruce, who still had his eyes closed, simply assumed the boy was savoring his victory. _

_ He only kept being proven wrong, tonight, apparently. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “So, knights are not soldiers”, Dick murmured. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ It wasn’t a question, this time. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Bruce was silent for a minute too. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “Soldiers…” he started, slowly. Finally learning again. “Soldiers only exist because of war. Whether there is one to fight, to win or to lose. Knights’ existence depends on… other things. A kingdom -a society, doesn’t stop needing to be looked after, ever, enemies at the borders or not. It’s like you, at school. You need adults around, not just teachers but also supervisors, nurses, secretaries. You need people who are meant to look after you, not just when there is a problem to solve, but to make you feel safe just by knowing they’re here. That’s what knights are for, too. I told you their castles were meant to be shelters for everyone in the country when there was an attack, but villagers didn’t live there all year. Castles were meant to stand and tell them : “I’m here. I’m safe. Those walls will protect you from anything, whenever you need it”, so they could go on with their life knowing they had a place to go no matter what. Soldiers are called to war by their countries. If Prince John did sent the nobility to war, Robin Hood wouldn’t go. Not as long as Notthingham’s people needed him more. It’s all about what you swore allegiance to, about the difference between the crown and the values.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Bruce fell silent again. He was not used to talking that much in one go. That was probably why his throat felt so funny, right now. He wasn’t even sure any of that did actually come out as a coherent speech. A part of him, the part that felt greener and younger at every step since he had taken Dick home, desperately wanted to ask the boy if he understood. If Bruce had actually managed to make sense, for once in his life. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ He had sworn to wage war against all criminals, not so long ago. At the time, the oath had only felt like giving long overdue form to a fifteen years old calling.Looking back at it, in this instant, it felt like a perjury. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Maybe he had never actually needed Dick to start falling in obvious traps and lose every bit of wisdom he ever had, after all. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “Batman is not a soldier”, Dick said, pensively. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ It wasn’t asked as a question, either, but it couldn’t not be one. Not for Bruce, and not tonight. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “I guess no” he rasped. “He is not. Or he shouldn’t be, at least.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Dick scooted forward with his legs, detaching himself from Bruce for the first time since they had started reading, and made a 180° turn so he could face him while perching himself on his knees. Bruce let him, having already lost his lower half to pins and needles a couple of hours ago anyway. _  
  
_ “Does that mean you have a sword ?” Dick asked, face like he had just been told it was Christmas morning. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “...What.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “Come on, B ! The sword you got when you made your oath ! Did you just kiss it too, or did Commissioner Gordon do the shoulder thing ? Or Alfred ? Who made you the Dark Knight of Gotham ? Why aren’t you using your sword ?” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “It kept getting tangled in the cape.” _

_  
_ _ Dick put both his hands in front of his mouth, so he could burst into laughter in the sleepy, silent house. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “No way !” he giggled, flopping onto the bed like Bruce had wanted to in earlier. He still did, if he was being honest. But the pain still outweighed the shame, for him, while Dick’s ability to bounce back to joy seemed inexhaustible. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Bruce really never were a match for him. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “Do you still have it ?” the boy kept asking. “Could you show me ? Can we replay your oath in the basement, so you can do the shoulder thing with me and I can be a knight too?” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “I didn’t make my oath in the basement.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Dick giggled again. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “Did you make it on a gargoyle in Gotham ?” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “No.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “Holy moly, did you do it in a basilisk, like Raoul ? Did you go to England and made it with the queen ? Or was there ever any king in Gotham and you made it on their statue ?” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Bruce thought about the chair in the study, and what had been standing before it. Weirdly enough, it was never his father’s bust he remembered, when he thought about that night. It was always the chair, and the blood. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “Why are you so absolutely convinced I needed a 19th century novel dramatic setting ?” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Dick -who had been rolling around the bed like a delighted kitten as he were making increasingly wacky suggestions- stopped mid-movement to look at Bruce upside down. Even at this angle, his expression was so _ Alfred _ that Bruce almost laughed. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Almost. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Instead, he leaned forward and grabbed Dick’s nose between two knuckles,so the boy’s snarky comeback got dissolved into more giggling. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “B ! Stop that !” Dick half-snuffled, half-shrieked while trying to shake him off. “You just don’t wanna admit you have no sword, and that you can’t make me a knight too!” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “We do have a room full of armors and antique weaponry” Bruce smirked, as he pretended to use his knuckles as a corkscrew, and pulled off his hand while wiggling the tip of his thumb between two fingers. “But given how easily I just cut off your nose, I’m not sure an actual sword is a good idea for you, microbe.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “Pfff, you’re just afraid I will kick your butt, like I did with the lightsaber.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “It was a plastic book cover film roll, and you were refusing to listen when I told you lightsaber fighting technique was actually closer to kendo than to fencin-” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Dick had jumped to his feet, and launched himself at Bruce with as loud of a warcry as he dared in the middle of the night. Bruce rolled with the attack on his good shoulder, laughing, and grabbed Dick’s hand to make him pat the bandage, once. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “Mind the old one’s handicap” he whispered in his ear as they wrestled on the discarded covers, happy, and wanting this to last, and last, and last. _

_ \- _

He had slept the rest of the evening off, after their awkward improvised tea party. He had woken up around ten, when Dick was already in bed, and Alfred was being… somewhere.  
  
He had gone on patrol without trying to find him.  
  
He didn’t know what to say.  
  
There was no rational arguments to oppose what might be the most bitter, the most impossible truth of of them all to mourn : Gotham didn’t want to be saved.  
  
He grappled through all of East Side, from Sprang River to Miller Harbor, taking the time to check on every street with a broken lamppost, every building with a faulty fire alarm system, every public fountain the city should have already shut down, because they depended on the one pumping station the Maronis had used to drown 11 tons of cocaine last month, rather than risking it being seized and stolen by the Falcones, who payed the mayor.  
  
There was only so much founding Wayne Enterprises could offer without seeing it devoured by the very people it was supposed to disarm. There were only so much banks he could buy to cut the hydra’s dirty money sources, there were only so much companies he could force to have sufficient health insurance policies for all the employees without firing all the hydra’s heads first and finding them again the next day in another board, under another name.  
  
There were only so much schools he could build to teach kids how to fight the hydra, when the hydra was buying the parents.  
  
Of course he knew Gotham didn’t want to be saved.  
  
He hadn’t walked out of this alley fifteen years ago wanting to be saved, either. He hadn’t made his oath thinking he would be.  
  
But there was something about those lightless streets, unsafe buildings and poisoned fountains -something that pushed him.  
  
Something that kept telling him : “What if you stop looking.”  
  
“What if you stop looking and there is a mugger with a gun, or man ready to spray acid on whoever tries to defend their victim, or a mobster cutting trapezes’ lines so you would know he is watching you from the audience, always.”  
  
“What if you give up, and there is someone who would have cried for you, and asked to be saved.”  
  
“What if you had walked out of that alley wanting to be saved yourself, and didn’t make your oath. What if you made another one.”  
  
“What if you had sworn to think about your life as more precious, as not worth risking to save any of the rotten hearts.”  
  
“What if you had become one of the hydra’s heads.”  
  
He had everything for it. He had money, and rage, and enough lies to try and cover his terror of the truth, since he couldn’t mourn it.  
  
He had told his father so he wouldn’t tell himself : I shall become a bat.  
  
I shall become something that doesn’t look like the hydra, so all its heads would be scared of it. So I would see in their terrified eyes that I’m different from them.  
  
So I would be the monster they fear instead of being the one they need to join them and make the nest of vipers grow.  
  
But even that hadn’t been enough. It could never be, because Bruce apparently kept falling in all the traps, instead of learning.  
  
Dick wanted to be saved. Dick had said yes, please, take me home and don’t let me be alone. Don’t lie to me, I want the truth. I want to help.  
  
And Bruce had told him, because Dick had almost died from making the wrong oath, from wanting to kill Zucco. Bruce had told him, because Dick had needed to know he wasn’t alone so he would live. He had needed a friend. A knight.  
  
Bruce had told Dick the truth, because he would have died of Dick’s death.  
  
And now that Bruce had promised him, now that he realized he hadn’t been wrong to not give up, he knew his life was worth sparing a thought about. He knew he had to prove Dick someone was here to save him, so Dick would keep believing it was possible. He knew Dick would die of Bruce’s death.  
  
Just like Alfred would have, for the sole crime of having kept believing _ Bruce _ would be saved, when Bruce himself didn’t.  
  
He only kept being proven wrong, tonight, apparently.

  
  
  
-

  
  
  
Bruce found the Cave empty and lightless when he came back, save for the numerous monitors’ screens glow. The computer was in fact several computers, and when some of them went to sleep, the others kept running. It was teamwork. No one was ever left alone.  
  
Bruce didn’t even bother taking off more than the cowl, as he climbed the stairs four steps at a time, afraid of (or maybe hungry for) something he didn’t dare try and put a word on.  
  
Alfred had gone to bed, and tomorrow there would be time to talk to him. Tomorrow, there would be time to try and put words on things, to mourn the lies and success, this time. Tonight, after everything, he had little energy left to do anything but feel.  
  
Cape shuffling softly behind him as he reached the second floor, quieter even than he had been while crossing East Side, he went straight to Dick’s door. Then, the feel stopped him. He didn’t think. He still couldn’t. He just turned heels, and went back to his own door. Pushed it open, breathe caught in his throat.  
  
Dick was there again, bundled under Bruce’s covers, face buried in Bruce’s pillow. The bedside lamp was turned off, but Bruce didn’t need it to see.  
  
Dick’s eyes were open, and fixed on him.  
  
“Hey, chum.”  
  
Dick blinked at him and a tiny hand emerged from under the pile of blankets, before making a sleepy “come here” kind of gesture.  
  
Bruce would have smiled, if he hadn’t been so terrified. He stepped in the room, taking his sweet time to close the door as silently as he could (as if he didn’t do most things as silently as he could, ever), but realizing distantly that he was keeping his eyes locked with Dick’s as he did so.  
  
By what miracle his cape didn’t get caught in the door and strangle him as he walked towards his boy, he would never know.  
  
“Hey” he repeated, not even loud enough to be a murmur, barely a sigh. Dick scooted to the right and patted the spot next to him, like he felt that Bruce needed renewed permission to sit on his own bed. He sat up as Bruce settled against the headboard, taking a minute to check on his guardian from head to toe, not a single hint of shyness or self consciousness on his face as he did so. For what felt like the billionth time since he had met him, Bruce thought : _ ‘You are so brave’ _ .  
  
Those weren’t words that were hard to think, even when he thought he had been too tired for any others. They felt just as natural as breathing, as natural as awe, when he was with Dick.  
  
“You okay ?” Dick whispered. Slurred, rather.  
  
“I am.”  
  
The boy looked at him a second longer and then, as if that look too was permission, Bruce opened his arms and Dick crawled into his lap.  
  
“Alfred was angry.”  
  
“He was. He will be for a while.”  
  
“But you aren’t hurt _ more _ , this time. It’s still the same wound.”  
  
Bruce huffed, feeling Dick’s thick black locks brushing his cheeks as he did so. He hadn’t even realized he had laid his head against Dick’s, but then again, he was doing so whenever he could. He had since that day he had taken Dick for a motorcycle ride and Dick had seen his bruises for the first time, even without knowing what they meant yet. Sometimes it felt like he could only ever relax, could only ever breathe when his lips were pressed against Dick’s scalp.It was truth without word, and this one he wasn’t afraid of anymore.  
  
“Alfred isn’t angry with me because I was hurt. Not only, at least. Not this time” he heard himself say, still too tired to think. Those words too, didn’t feel hard for him to say -like the natural continuation of _ feeling _ instead of everything else he usually did before speaking, be it finding a lie or a silence or a new reason to not believe.  
  
Tonight he just wanted to kiss his boy’s hair, and breathe, and feel.  
  
“He is angry with me because even you knowing the truth and _ seeing _ me hurt isn’t enough to make me want to stop.”  
  
Dick’s head jerked under his face, and Bruce leaned back a little to look at him.  
  
“Why would Alfred want you to _ stop _ ?” he exclaimed, sounding suddenly way more awake than a few seconds ago.  
  
“Dick-”  
  
“You’re Batman ! You’re- everyone in Gotham calls you the Dark _ Knight _ ! It’s your oath ! It’s your system, it’s… there is no good king or kingdom here, but there are _ people _ , you told me ! You told me people needed someone to be _ meant _ to look after them ! You can’t just _ stop _ ! There isn’t anyone else ! The musketeers wouldn’t ! Robin Hood wouldn’t ! Why… Why would Alfred… You’re _ Batman _ !”  
  
“Dick” Bruce said again, something very thick in his throat suddenly making it hard to speak and think again, as he took the boy’s face in his hands, trying to stem the tide a little. But Dick shook his head, breaking away from his hold, and raised on his feet, looking at him from above with something so grave, so intense on his face that Bruce felt himself shudder. He looked suddenly much taller than his three feet eight, and much, much bigger than anything Bruce had ever committed himself to, anything he had ever weighed his life against only to find it wanting.  
  
“You’re _ Batman. _ ” Dick repeated, fists clenching at his sides and eyes -oh god his eyes, his searching, terrified, _ furious _ eyes- locking to Bruce’s once again, as they were starting to shine a bit too wet. “You saved me. You promised me, you _ swore _ you would never let me be alone. If you -If you’re a knight, if you swore the same to the people in Gotham, and you ever think about stopping, then you break your oath. You break your promise. And if you can break your promise to Gotham… then it means you can break your promise to me, too.”  
  
There was something shattering. Not between them, not between Bruce and Gotham, but in his chest. Something bigger than anything Bruce had ever thought he had in him at all.  
  
Before he ever knew it, he had raised up on the bed and found his footing, combat boots scraping on the soft thousands dollars bedsheet, tearing it apart as he put an armored knee in front of Dick. He took both of his hands in his own, pressing them against the dark, winged crest on his chest.  
  
“I swore to you” he said, every single word now as crystal clear in his thoughts as in his heart, “I swore to Gotham. I swore to my father, to my mother, to everything that I ever believed in. I won’t stop. I shall never stop. I am Batman, and I shall always be there, for all of you, to help you and keep you safe, for as long as I live.”  
  
Dick was looking at Bruce just as intensely and furiously as he had before, except he was blinking all he could while doing so. Tears were running free along his small, flushed cheeks, and Bruce would have already cupped his face again to wipe them away if the boy’s hands weren’t clutching so hard at his suit -if Dick’s blurred gaze hadn’t felt precisely like he was needing Bruce to look at him and nothing else to see through the storm.  
  
Bruce waited, holding on Dick’s hands and gaze just as hard as the shattered thing in his chest was holding on to dear life.  
  
“You won’t be there for Alfred ?” Dick finally rasped in a lost, strangled voice.  
  
It was Bruce’s turn to blink, hard, as his own eyes burnt.  
  
“What makes you say that ?” he asked, hard, the thing in chest brutally whole again, and alive, and _ angry _ . As angry as he was at the hydra’s heads, the monsters he hadn’t wanted to look like.  
  
It was the sudden iciness in his guts that made him amorce a gesture to run away, and the sheer terror on Dick’s face when he felt Bruce let go that stopped him.  
  
“I’m sorry !” Dick cried, throwing himself against the Bat symbol, looking all but nine years old, three feet eight and fifty pounds of distress all over again. Bruce wanted to bury his face in the ground in front of him and beg _ him _ for forgiveness. “I’m sorry, Bruce, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, I know you love Alfred, I know you love him so much, I know, Bruce, I swear I know, you love him like I love y-”  
  
Bruce’s forehead fell against Dick’s, and the impact was so soft it wouldn’t have upset a single of Aunt Harriet’s hat’s feathers. Surely, it wasn’t that impact that had just made Dick stop.  
  
Surely, the impact that had just made Dick’s words die on his lips was the same one that had made the armored whole of Bruce go so weak under him, weak in front of that child whose death he would have died from.  
  
As weak as Alfred might have felt, when he had realized Bruce didn’t want to be saved.  
  
“I know what you meant” Bruce whispered, feeling each tear that was falling from his cheeks to Dick’s like he had felt that knife in his shoulder last night. “Batman shall always be there for you, Richard Grayson, just like he shall always be there for Gotham, but Alfred doesn’t need Batman. Alfred needs me not to be hurt. I didn’t swear to him, because it’s a promise I knew I couldn’t keep, back then. It’s a promise I didn’t know how to _ want _ to keep. But I think I’m starting to, now.”  
  
Bruce opened his eyes, and held Dick in front of him, both hands on his tiny, tiny shoulders, that were shaking under his palms the same way they had shook that night at the circus, as Bruce was telling him not to look at his parents’ destroyed bodies.  
  
“I told you who I was. I removed my mask in front of you. You’re the first person for whom I ever, ever did. Alfred knew me before Batman. He always knew that I could get hurt, that this life, that this oath, meant that he would never be free of the worry to see me coming home with blood on my suit. That’s why he doesn’t believe in Batman. Now you know me too. You know the truth. You know I can get hurt, and that I can’t promise you to never be, even if I try my best. But what I can promise you now is that no matter how much I have to bleed to keep my word, no matter how much I get hurt to protect the people of Gotham, no matter how much monsters I have to fight to do so, by the end of the night, I will always, always come back home to you. I will always do everything in my power to do so. As long as I’m alive, I will never let you be alone. This is an oath I can, and want to take. I swear it to you.”  
  
Tears were still running down Dick’s cheeks, but he wasn’t shaking anymore, as he raised his hands and put them as best as he could on Bruce’s wide shoulders, the same way Bruce did to him.  
  
“I believe you.”  
  
And then, on a whim, he carefully took hold of Bruce’s forearm, the one that got stabbed, and struggled to remove the heavy black gauntlet without hurting his guardian any further. Curious, Bruce didn’t stop him, and patiently showed him how to work the secured straps loose and not cut himself on the sharp metal spikes. Once the gauntlet was off, he grabbed Bruce’s hand and held it in his own for a long moment, as he plunged his big blue eyes in Bruce’s once again.  
  
“I believe you, and I believe _ in _ you. I believe in Batman. I can’t swear I will let you be hurt without being angry, even when you do it to protect other people, but I will always believe in you. I will always believe you will come back. And I will… I swear I will -I shall… I will find…”  
  
Bruce didn’t interrupt him as he was fumbling for words, not sure he was getting it all but gathering every scrap of control he had left, summoning every ounce of his strength to let Dick finish this on his own terms and not hug him as tight as possible.  
  
He was almost grateful, when Dick gave up on the end of his oath, and kissed Bruce’s hand instead.  
  
“Like Raoul”, the boy chuckled, the grin back on his face, just as bright as ever. “We don’t have a sword to kiss, but-” Dick bite his lip, but didn’t look away from Bruce, except to look at the book he had taken with him again. "I owe you everything” he started, “and yet this sword -it’s not actually a sword but this is the part I remember the best so I’m saying it anyway -this sword is the most precious gift you have yet made me. I will _ hold _ it, I swear to you, as a grateful man should do."  
  
Bruce wondered how many times in a single night the thing in his chest could collapse, and then be whole again, each time bigger than before.  
  
“Tis well” he murmured, Dumas’ words feeling just as natural as all the others he had spoken aloud since he had found Dick in his room. “Tis well ; arise, vicomte, and embrace me."  
  
Dick flung himself into his arms, laughing, laughing, laughing, and Bruce actually laughed with him.  
  
“You did well even without a statue or a basilisk” Dick said, snuggling close.  
  
“Hmm. Maybe we should think of doing it again in a properly dramatic setting, this time.”  
  
“Could I ask Alfred for costumes again ?”  
  
“I said dramatic, not ridiculous. He’s petty when he is angry, you know.”  
  
“Now I see where you get it from” Dick smirked, shifting his face so he would be looking at Bruce from below. “Wait, does that mean I’m gonna become a petty drama queen too ?”  
  
Bruce almost asked him what he meant. Almost.  
  
There were things he _ had _ been learning.  
  
He grabbed Dick’s hand, and mirrored the boy’s earlier gesture by kissing his knuckles, too.  
  
“You may indeed.”  
  
Dick grinned again, and pressed himself closer.  
  
“I believe in you. I swear I will be the best student.”  
  
Bruce leaned them both back against the headboard, and rested his lips against the boy’s hair again.  
  
“I believe in you too.”  
  
As it turned out, some truths weren’t actually a price to pay, or a ghost to mourn.  
  
Some truths were a gift. 

**Author's Note:**

> After motorcycles, fencing and knights. At some point, I might probably have to write a third installment to give baby Dick an obsession with metal, too, so he will finally achieve his transformation into teenage me.
> 
> Illustration was made with japanese ink and white ink, on sketchbook paper. Please do not steal or repost without permission ♥ You can also find me on [Tumblr](http://androbeaurepaire.tumblr.com/) and [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/androbeaurepaire.art/) for more art and DC related content !


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